Mickey Mouse Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I do not read for you my alphabet of tigers:
It is not publishable,
As the teacher lays sweating outside with his students,
Thinking that some of them are terribly beautiful,
But terribly frightened to admit it:
And there are so many levels to explore beneath him:
Of trapped dwarves,
And hoarding dragons and armies of animated
Skeleton
To finally get out of the trap door and into the other
Side of illusion:
But for now there are only these things in the twilight
Before Christmas as the lions sleep and
The alligators sleep
Like the football teams in their anthills of bedrooms-
And you lay pushed to him,
Opened mouthed in one deep part of the river,
But staying with him you will never have to see Mickey
Mouse-
And your world remains different and far away,
Filled with the stain glass of churches switching places
With a vermilion and ever-changing sea.